We didn’t get the medals – yet.  The ceremony is tomorrow.  But “World Champion” sounds nice, don’t it?

I doubt I could be eloquent at all right now (not that I’ve acheived any literary heights in my quickly-written posts this week).  It’s 2:00 a.m., and I’m back from a relatively subdued dinner followed by a loud party that was large enough to fill an ice hockey rink.

There’s a lot to consider from today, which I’ll attempt to do some justice to later.  The short version is:

Semis: New Zealand played better in this game than when we played them previously, hitting on several challenging long throws in particular.  We were also able to pressure them into enough turnovers to get us through with a relatively-comfortable 17-13 win.  Truthfully, their game was a little one-dimensional, and one player in particular was very strong running deep.  Overall, a good, hard-fought game, and I’ll proudly wear my shiny new New Zealand Ultimate hat.
Finals: Canada re-match.  Yes, like people expected.  It was a tight game and a little sloppy; finals tend to be cagey and this one was no exception.  Enough turnovers to go around, especially on a brutal final point with three turnovers from us.

I got into a collision with one of our own players early in the second half, and the result was me not playing the rest of the game.  Tightened my back up enough that I wouldn’t have been able to hit 100%.  I’m a little torn about whether I should think I’m lame for not sucking it up and getting out there, or whether I was simply doing the right thing by letting the sub-caller (Al)  know that I wasn’t at full speed.  I would have gone in had we given up a run of breaks, but in any event, Al, Paul, and Moonee took care of the handling duties through the final push.  Those three have played a ton of huge games together.

I recognize that not playing much of that second half could make the result feel hollow to me, as in, “if *I* didn’t help get it done, it doesn’t count.”   But that isn’t the nature of team sports.  I’m going to be very proud to get up on that podium tomorrow and collect the gold medal – proud personally for what I’ve accomplished all week up until now, but even more proud to be a member of this team that got it done together.

I’m already wondering if this level of introspection (to coin a word?) belongs out here on this blog.  But it’s 2:30 a.m., and there it is.   I’ll be putting out some more pictures and some more cogent thoughts on the tournament over the next few days.  But now, maybe I’ll try that sleeping thing again…

Tired.  Late.  Short post tonight.
The bottom line for today is that winning ugly is still winning.  Our O did not work all that well, but our D pulled us back from down 9-5 at half to a 16-14 (I think) victory.  It wasn’t all bad for the O, but we got broken too many times for our standards.  The game was clearly a step up from yesterday’s games in intensity.  They played much harder and more physical D – in fact, I got taken out twice by the guy covering me.  Overall, though, the spirit level was quite high, despite a few close calls.
Since we come from the tradition of Big Ego UltiME, I’ll mention my play from today: yuck.  I know I’m supposed to try to get things done, but I threw two turns today, and that’s not how I’m supposed to impact the game.  One long one to Simon which hung a bit.  He says he gave up position and should have had it, but I’m still taking it because the throw was shorter than I should have thrown it.  For the second one I threw a timing pattern to Jim, but I released as he turned and he simply never saw the disc coming.  He would have had to flare a little for the catch, and thus, no catch.  Damn.  (For people who think I’m too hard on myself: no, I didn’t play horribly.  A few nice deliveries, some good fight through tough D, but I know I’m going to have to step it up, and I intend to do so.)

With nothing to do today until 5:00, I watched a little ultimate.  Didn’t get to see the US Men, who didn’t play until 4:30 themselves.  Got to see a little of the US Women, but did get to see some Juniors play.  The US Boys cruised against Germany.   The US Girls had more of a fight against a quick, talented Japan squad, but pulled it out in the end.

A couple pictures here from today, including the team shot from our game against Canada (roster limits, anyone?).  But I mostly haven’t sorted through the pictures.  Hopefully more tomorrow…

Onward.

Assuming I can remember correctly at my advanced age, I’ve played two Masters tournaments. I’m 2-0, which is a pretty good percentage, I guess. Then again, I’ve played two tournaments with pretty darn talented folks. Even if they’re old.

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The Short Fat Guys decided this year that we should find a way to add “Old” into the name. “Short Old Fat Guys”, “Short Fat Old Guys”, something. Before a couple 30-something reinforcements arrived for Saturday’s games, we would not have been able to put out a line that didn’t include some 40+. Read the rest of this entry »

Over New Year’s, I was chatting with A-list ultimate bloggers Jim and George. One made the observation that when ultimatetalk was just getting started, I was right on the bubble. Now, it seems I’ve fallen off the bubble and live deep in the second tier. And I’m not sure whether that’s a bad thing.

So in the spirit of New Year’s reflections, here are my thoughts about my blogging and what’s going to happen here now.
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At the close of her first season playing Mixed, one player with a lot of elite women’s experience made an observation to me that came down to four things about Mixed:
The pace is higher.
It’s generally easier to cover the women.
I can’t have as much of an impact.
I had a lot of fun playing Mixed.

There’s a lot of truth in there, and it speaks volumes about women in the Mixed game as it stands today.
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Other folks blogs are talking about cheap/intentional fouls. Here’s my story from this year’s Nationals, and why I still don’t think we can enforce additional penalties for this kind of offense.
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So, as it turns out, if you’re inconsistent and make some bad decisions, you get beat. Yes, Jim, even in Mixed. So here’s how 6TM did, really. I’ve got to get this out of the way before I try to make general observations about Nationals. That’ll be next.
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We have a guy on our team who some have described as the ultimate teammate. He is always ready to play. He is undemanding of PT, happy to do his job for a couple points per game or for more when called on. He considers it a primary responsibility of his to “push the starters in practice” but he is competitive and plays hard on the field. He is capable of playing more than he does and never complains.

We have a guy on our team who is a leader on the field with his play. He will get open for you and he can defend your opponent’s toughest guy. He’s fast, skilled, and experienced. He plays a lot of points.

Which one is the ultimate teammate?
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Been very slow posting, as the 6TM braintrust has been deep in email hell planning practices and arguing about strategies. But in the interest of writing more stuff that’s all me-me-me, I bring you some thoughts on my Nationals experiences now that I’m going back for another helping.
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The most dangerous time in ultimate is transition. Even aside from obvious failures of positioning due to a sudden reversal of fortunes, the “new” defensive team can be momentarily confused or slow to react. So why is it that teams are always yelling to “walk to it!” and should they be yelling it? Read the rest of this entry »

Erik Sebesta made an astute observation about what happened in our favor: we got the wake up call we badly needed and we still won the Section to preserve seed going into Regionals. Read the rest of this entry »

Ok, Adam, it’s actually called the Chicago Heavyweight Championships. We know.

If our goal was to avoid the supposed Tune-Up curse, we did just fine: we didn’t win. But it was a worthwhile tournament for us. Final record: 6-2 with one loss at double game point and the finals loss, 15-10. Mostly, though, it gave us a good read on where we are at this point in our season.
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I’ve never played on a team that didn’t try to have several end zone plays. I’ve also never played on a team that used more than 1 or 2 of them successfully on a regular basis in the run of play. Play calls are helpful – even essential – off stopped discs, but they often fail from open play because getting into and recognizing the position to run them slows them down.
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Has Corporate really gone Club?

A couple years ago, BUDA renamed the Corporate/Open League (BUDACOL) to the Summer Club League. The rationale was that Corporate teams, freed long ago from the rule that 50% of each roster had to be from one company, are much more like Club teams than they are like Summer Hat League teams. I vehemently opposed the change. I just didn’t like blurring the lines between recreational Summer League and “serious” Club Ultimate. The decision stood anyway because a few people didn’t think any of the other suggestions were any better.
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Per Jim, I’ve got a subject for a blog post based on a throw I completed against his defense in a corporate game. At the time of the throw, I just thought it was a slight misjudgement for which I got saved by a good receiving play. At the time of Jim’s comment, I figured Jim’s angle was giving me an “I-beat-Jimmy-P-with-a-throw” post. But it got me thinking about risk factors in on-field choices and about self-analysis.
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So, you’ve got a big roster on your open/women’s team. Even in the dog days of late summer, you probably get enough people at practice. On your Mixed team, you gotta worry about how many of each gender, not just the total count. All it takes is a couple women traveling, one woman going to poetry slam nationals, and one woman injured, and you end up with almost no subs for your women on a really hot day and one of them is heaving on the sidelines. I’m speaking hypothetically, of course, Becky.
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We could have been satisfied coming out of the Invite without winning: nowhere in the team’s list of goals is “win the Boston Invite”. It was more important to make roster decisions and start really coming together as a team. But winning is more fun than losing. There’s a big, if lightweight, trophy in my living room and a bunch of happy teammates with hoarse voices and sunburns scattered around the area.

Only a little analysis here (more discussion later this week), but if you’re curious how the tournament when for 6TM, go ahead and read…
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Jim and Zaz say that “cutters are the lifeblood of an offense” (or something close to that, I don’t have the manual with me). Moonee wrote a great series on Conceptual Ultimate like 8 years ago on r.s.d. which reinforced the importance of goal-scorers and supports that idea. (My favorite of the posts is here.)

A central point seems to be that without good cutting, you’re screwed. So why is it so damn hard? Here I’m thinking about a few errors that (mostly non-expert) cutters seem consistently to make.
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A little about our middling showing at Easterns and a question about how people learn good spacing both individually and as a team.
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